All the awkward silence of walking away from an emotionally draining experience with unfriendly strangers, plus the tension and fear of a loud city in the grip of multiple simultaneous riots, mostly involving people who would kill us if they thought they could. Yeah, the short walk back to the tram station had it all.

Aster stepped closer to me, leaned her head in and spoke in a voice low enough that probably only the goblins and familiars could overhear.

“You remember when I told you to be kind whenever you could?”

I managed not to flinch. “What of it?”

“You are really bad at it.”

I abruptly stopped and began turning on her with a scowl, but Aster smiled and took my arm, gently urging me back into motion.

“But,” she continued just as softly, “you have never stopped trying. I just wanted you to know I see it. And it makes all the difference. Please keep it up.”

Well. Less angering, but somehow not any less awkward. I deflected, because what the hell else is a guy supposed to do in that situation?

“You know, this isn’t getting you any closer to my bed.”

“Please.” She dropped my arm. “Bitch, I could have you if I wanted you. And by the way, stop opening discussions by setting people on fire. I’m just a lowborn girl from a farm but even I know that’s not how diplomacy works.”

Despite everything, I found a reason to grin. After the last few minutes, it was a relief.

We had just crested the ramp, rejoining the goblins and my people on the upper level, when Flaethwyn suddenly gasped.

“Who are you?”

I glanced back and found that she had finally noticed Nazralind, and seemed absolutely dumbfounded.

“Who, me?” Naz said lightly. “Just Conzart out picking hedge berries.”

“Ah. Well…” Flaethwyn let out an uncomfortable little titter, which was still a happier sound than I’d have thought her capable of making. “I guess we’re all Quaelisco’s jailers down here, anyway. I just hope not to end up holding the wooden key.”

“Once the pure moon rises, everybody’s a smidge hunter,” Nazralind agreed in a tone that managed to be both solemn and noncommittal.

“Y’know what I really appreciate about Naz and the girls?” Adelly mumbled, coming up on my other side. “They usually don’t do that in front of other people.” Aster and I nodded agreement.

Dap pulled ahead of the group and darted into the tram station before us with three of his armored security goblins, leaving four accompanying us outside. Glancing back, I noted with amusement that he’d quietly stationed them in a loose box around the Hero’s party, well out of arm’s reach. The targets of this formation seemed not to have noticed; Flaethwyn was stubbornly ignoring the goblins and the other three looked like they were barely holding it together.

“Still clear!” Dap called, poking his head out.

“Were you worried?” I asked.

“Not specifically, Lord Seiji, but it’s a chaotic situation and this structure was absent our control for several minutes. Always gotta check in a case like that.”

“Fair enough, I can see you know your work.”

The pink-armored goblin beamed with pride, and I found myself wondering about Miss Sneppit’s management style. Her people seemed extremely competent, but… Dap was hungry for approval and Zui—who was clearly close to Sneppit herself—felt the need to disobey her orders over this.

It was worth thinking about.

The tram station was clearly not one of the older structures Gizmit had mentioned, for all that its facade looked Western neo-classical to me. I could tell because the door was goblin sized; we all had to duck and in some cases crouch to get in. That door was actually more of a tunnel, revealing that the outer wall was probably thick enough to have withstood any siege had they managed to hold the doorway itself. Dap and company helpfully pushed the remnants of their makeshift barricade out of the way as they entered, so us tall folk didn’t have to struggle too much to get through aside from hunching over.

Inside it was both alien and bizarrely familiar. Once you have seen a train station, you’ve kind of seen them all; they’re all individual in their way but there is a limit to how much variation can be introduced without messing up the thing’s essential functions. Tracks, platform, ticket office, vendor stalls, benches. Yep, this was a train station. Despite being abandoned and filled with evidence of recent fighting, even at half-scale, carved out of the living rock and with its interior structures all made of exposed metal, and the walls covered in those DIY murals the goblins loved…train station.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“They have trains,” Yoshi said in a numb tone from just behind me. “They have a monorail.”

Impressive as this feat of engineering was given the solidly medieval civilization that existed just above them, I found I wasn’t anxious to climb onto the goblin tram, and not just because it was built for people half my size. It was indeed a monorail, the tram cars hanging from a single track affixed to the ceiling of the tunnel which extended off in both directions from the station, but below that…

They were just hanging cages, basically. There was a front car with what looked like folded wings affixed; it took me a moment to recognize them as collapsible sails, which also added context for why it was so damn windy in here. I guess the titanic drop to the core would produce updrafts which, properly harnessed, were a more efficient source of propulsion than anything fuel-burning. Clever as that was, the two passenger cars behind it were just square boxes with metal plates for ceiling and floor, and nothing but open-sided metal bars for walls aside from a smaller plate along the front. The entire thing swayed gently from its track as gusts swished through the station, as if eager to get underway.

“Well, Zui,” said Gizmit, “you got it here without wrecking it, so I assume you know what all the levers do.”

“I know the basics, but Zekki’s actually trained as an engineer,” Zui replied, pointing at one of the armored security goblins. “It’ll be a much smoother trip than Rhoka and I had if she takes over.”

“Damn, you are?” asked another of the squad, lightly punching Zekki’s shoulder. “I didn’t know that. What’re you doing slinging shots with us then, huh?”

“Hey, you gotta diversify your skillset if you wanna be competitive in the job market!” Zekki replied with a particularly sharklike grin. “Good things come to those who hustle. I aim to be management while you mooks are all aging in your armor.”

“Nothin’ wrong with being content where you are,” another of her comrades objected. “I love this job. I get to stand around all day and occasionally hit people. Fuckin’ bliss, man.”

“You’ve worked in retail, haven’t you?” I asked him, earning multiple grins and a couple of laughs from the goblins.

Zui cleared her throat loudly. “Right, so anyway, this means the squad is getting on the tram, everybody clear?”

“Yeah, that matter’s still left unsettled, isn’t it?” said Dap, turning to me.

Oh, right, that. Great.

I glanced back, past the milling humans who were staring around the tram station in varying degrees of bemusement, at the door to the chaos gripping Fallencourt outside.

“I’m inclined to take Zui’s side on this, after the shit we just went through,” I admitted. “I know I really should not begin my personal acquaintance with Miss Sneppit by countermanding her orders, but I am extremely tired of watching goblins die, let alone being responsible for it.”

“Make peace with it,” Gizmit said curtly. “There’s going to be a lot more of that before Jadrak’s dealt with, one way or another.”

“Smoke and rubble, Gizmit, that is not something to get blasé about!” Zui exclaimed.

“Excuse me,” said Yoshi, stepping forward to join the discussion with a confused frown, “but what’s the problem here?”

“Dap and his squad were sent here under orders to secure and hold this station against the Goblin King’s followers,” I explained. “Contracts and honoring your word are a big deal in goblin culture, so they’re reluctant to evac with us.”

“What?” His frown deepened and grew more incredulous. “That’s crazy, you’ve seen what it’s like out there. Eight of you can’t possibly—you’ll get killed! Just get on the train.”

And suddenly, like an explosion behind my eyes, insight burst upon me. Yoshi had just handed me not only a resolution to the immediate problem, but a possible way for me to escape the rock and hard place I’d climbed between just by coming down here.

“Better do as he says,” I solemnly advised Dap before anyone else could speak. “You wouldn’t want to make the Hero angry.”

“Wait, what? No, no, I didn’t mean—ow!”

Yoshi stepped away, scowling at me in reproach and rubbing the ankle I’d just kicked against his other leg.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Uh…hm.” Dap looked at him, then at me, and back at him, and finally tilted his head in a funny little half-shrug. “Welp, guess it’s hard to argue with that. Acts of the Goddesses and all. All right, team, we’re bugging out. Zekki, take the engineering car. Everybody else, load up before we get more uninvited guests.”

“Good thing Zui brought a second car,” said Gizmit, already heading for the rear one.

“Yeah, I was expecting to have to evacuate some extra people,” Zui agreed. “Exactly who turned out to be a surprise, but…here we are.”

I noticed Rhoka staring at me, having finally tilted her head back enough that I could see her face. Wow, yeah, she was young. Barely older than Yoshi, at a guess.

“Hmm,” the Arbiter grunted, then turned to follow Gizmit.

I had a strange premonition that this one was going to end up being a pain in my ass.

“Pack the butts into the front car,” Zekki called, sticking her head out of the engineering compartment which she’d just clambered into. “You wanna front-load the weight, helps stabilize the ride.”

“What does she mean, the butts?” Flaethwyn demanded.

As entertaining as it would have been to watch Nazralind explain that to her, and then Yoshi persuade her to climb into a hanging cage whose purpose she couldn’t discern at a glance, I suddenly had another thought which demanded my attention. The tunnel behind us was still clear, and we’d been away from it long enough for, say, an invisible person to slip through and join us. The insides of those tram cars were going to be a different matter, though, once everybody was loaded in. Already we were having to compromise, with Madyn and Ydleth joining the goblins in the rear car.

Part of me reveled in the idea of forcibly ditching my invisible stalker; serve them right for setting the cats on us like that. That was the vindictive part that tended to just get me in trouble, though, and I tried to give more weight to the rational side of my brain which recognized that Biribo and Aster’s advice had merit, and also that the dark elf had probably just saved some of our lives out there.

“Hey, Zui,” I said, zeroing in on the only goblin who hadn’t yet climbed aboard. “Is it safe to ride on top of the tram?”

“What?” She frowned incredulously up at me. “I mean… The brakes put off a lot of sparks, that’s why they’ve got solid ceilings. There is a shielded seat up at the very front of the engineering post, that’s used for engineers to service the track. It’s goblin-sized, though.”

“Bit of a squeeze for a human or elf, then.”

“Don’t ride on top of the tram, Lord Seiji,” she said, exasperated. “There’s room. Being a little snug for one tram ride won’t kill you.”

“Hah!” I headed for the front car, being the last to climb aboard. “Remind me to tell you about Japanese trains sometime.”

It was a little snug, especially since there wasn’t room for us tall folks to stand up and we had to fold our legs a bit creatively to fit everybody. Also, to my surprise, I was not the last one in; Zui joined us in the front car instead of riding with the other goblins. She gave me one challenging look and I decided not to comment. The one thing I understood about Zui was that I was still a long way off from understanding Zui.

Up front, the wing-like sails extended with a mechanical creak and clatter of gears turning, and immediately the entire train shuddered. Amell squealed and grabbed Yoshi, most of us clutched the bars for dear life, and we started moving forward.

The tram accelerated pretty quickly—not as fast as a powered mechanical train, of course, but I was impressed by how well it did with the level of technology on display. Also, it was much quieter than I would have expected. The constant but not overpowering whir from above us made me really curious about the mechanism up there, as I was pretty sure metal wheels on a metal track would make a lot more noise than that. For the most part, though, the noise was predominated by wind. It was certainly not quiet, at least not compared to the modern trains I was used to, but we could speak and be heard so long as we spoke loudly enough.

At first, nobody seemed to want to. We had all been through a traumatic experience, some of those present had just lost a friend, and everybody was doing their best to hang on. Even aside from the constant wind, these cars swayed about quite a bit more than I was comfortable with.

“Sorry!” Yoshi said for the fifth time in a row as going around a curve jostled him against Aster yet again.

“You know, you don’t have to keep apologizing,” she said with clear amusement. “It’s okay, I am very much aware of the situation we’re in.”

“Uh, sorr—I mean, um.” He ducked his head. “Right. Thanks. Habit, I guess.” Yoshi looked up at me and managed a weak smile. “It’s hard to adapt completely to a new culture. We’re Japanese; we apologize. It’s what we do.”

“Really.” Very slowly, like a menacing owl, she swiveled her head around to affix me with what I think might’ve been the most intense Aster Look yet. “I have specifically not noticed that.”

“What a surprise, the Dark Lord doesn’t have any manners,” Flaethwyn muttered just barely loud enough for us to hear, which was how I knew we were meant to. Beside her, Pashilyn heaved an inaudible sigh and closed her eyes, but did not comment.

“Hey, give me a break, I’m American on my mother’s side,” I said. “In my people’s culture excessive apologizing is how they identify Canadian spies.”

“You’re a hafu?” Yoshi blurted in surprise. “You don’t look—um! I mean, that is…uh. S-sorry.”

I let him twist in the awkwardness for a few seconds, not least because explaining my personal business was high on my very long list of “fuck no” activities. But, the urge to fill this particular emotionally exhausted silence was strong. Everybody could use a distraction, and I felt Yoshi in particular needed something to think about other than the day he was having. Besides, my own plans—both short term and long—involved reaching an accord with him, so maybe we could bond over Earth stuff. Since we had absolutely nothing else in common.

“My grandparents emigrated from Kyoto to California,” I explained after a pause. “I’ve never gotten a straight answer on why they wanted to flee the economic miracle for a country that was getting its ass kicked by it at the time, so I suspect it was some family drama. In any case, they worked hard, got a little lucky and made the right friends; they were able to get a good deal on some land and started planting trees. Oranges at first, then almonds and avocados—cash crops. These days they’re pretty loaded. They were also pretty big into assimilating, so my mom grew up speaking only English and…I dunno, skateboarding? Whatever teenagers did in the nineties.”

“Tamagotchis,” Yoshi said, nodding sagely.

“Uh…right, well, whatever. Point was, they raised her as fully American as they could. Which was unwise and kind of futile, given the way racial politics work in that country, but that’s a whole can of worms. In any case, Mom didn’t really know much about Japanese culture until she met my dad at uni.”

“She came to Japan to study?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Other way around. Which is another thing I don’t get. Dad’s from one of those old school super traditional families and nobody’s ever clued me in on why he even wanted to study abroad, but…there they were at UCLA. Apparently it was a real whirlwind thing, whole star-crossed lovers kinda deal. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, I was born in San Diego and then we moved back to Yokohama.”

Everyone was staring raptly at me, despite the fact that for most of them I was spouting a bunch of nonsense words. Even Pashilyn had lifted out of her funk somewhat to watch my face closely.

“So. I am fully Japanese by blood. Legally, I have dual citizenship. Culturally…”

Everyone was still staring raptly at me. Suddenly I wondered why the hell I’d kept talking so long about what was none of any of their damn business. I had definitely come to a subject I wasn’t about to even try explaining.

“…that’s complicated.”

The wind gushed through the loaded silence for a few more seconds until Yoshi repaid the favor by rescuing me.

“That’s interesting, I didn’t know you could actually get dual citizenship in Japan.”

“Get it, no. I don’t think either government grants it for any reason. But if you qualify for birthright citizenship somewhere else, they’re also not going to insist you renounce it, that’d just be a lot of paperwork and diplomatic tension for no good purpose.”

“Ah, gotta be born into it. I get you.” He nodded. “Must be pretty cool.”

Yeah, it was a fucking non-stop party.

“Well!” Flaethwyn tossed her head, making her golden hair flutter dramatically in the wind, and I was impressed that she did it at the perfect angle to avoid having it smack her in the face. That had to have been something she’d practiced. “I know a bit about being a stranger in a hostile land. We have been on this miserable island for months, and I’ve endured no end of harassment from the local authorities over some absurd grudge they have with my family.”

“Yes, and I’m sure you’ve done absolutely nothing to provoke any of that,” I said solemnly.

“It goes without saying,” Flaethwyn agreed, causing all three of her own party to turn incredulous stares on her and Aster to roll her eyes. “But there is just no reasoning with those people! Clan Aelthwyn are the most notoriously degenerate clods in all of Fflyr Dlemathlys, everyone knows it. I’m sure you must have had your share of poor experiences with the Aelthwyns,” she added to Nazralind, “considering you are…well, here. Thalissima in the Courts of the Yadon, as it were.”

“You’re not wrong there,” Naz agreed. “Right bunch of bastards, they are.”

“Honestly, something is just wrong with those people,” Flaethwyn nattered on, clearly encouraged. “It’s just bad blood, you know. Like the seven stepdaughters of Madnat. Even among elves, there are simply some families who have something rotten in them that goes right to their brains. All the way from birth, you just can’t do anything with them! I wish the King would step in. When the black lion is prowling the hedgerows, one must call upon Cadmin’s spear, not the branch and broom of the forlorn priestess.”

“Nice imagery,” Naz said in a bland tone.

“Oh! Forgive me, all this hullaballoo has made me forget my manners. I am Highlady Flaethwyn of Clan Adellaird.”

She tried to perform a hierat I hadn’t seen before, accidentally smacked Amell on the forehead, then abortively tucked her hands back into herself.

Naz smiled at her.

“Aelthwyn Nazralind. Pleased t’meetcha.”

I hadn’t realized it was possible for a silence to be deliciously awkward, but damn if I didn’t enjoy that one. Even Yoshi cringed. I felt an odd rhythmic twitching against my side that didn’t match the swaying of the tram, and looked down to find Zui clutching a hand over her mouth and bouncing in place with silent laughter. And then had to instantly avert my eyes and shuffle as far as I could the other way, because she was really bouncing. Across from me, Nazralind winked with the eye that was out of Flaethwyn’s view.

Nobody else got a chance to break the silence, though, as that was the point at which Zekki folded in the wings and hit the brakes. The squealing of metal from above us put an end to any further conversation, and I learned Zui had not been kidding about those sparks. The metal shields on top caught them, and also I observed that the ones on the front of the car where for more than blocking the wind, but the entire tunnel lit up to both sides of us as the tram’s brakes sprayed sparks the whole rest of the way to Sneppit’s home base.

Which, in the end, was nearly as long a ride as we’d had before the brakes were applied, or maybe it just felt that way due to the awkward silence and fire risk. I was no mechanic but I had a strong feeling that nothing with moving parts which were meant to be reusable should have them subjected to that kind of friction for that long. Especially if this was how the thing stopped every time.

I had to wonder if getting into this rickety contraption had been a serious mistake. Almost unbidden, the weight of Heal formed in the forefront of my mind, ready to be deployed.

It worked, though; Zekki had even got the timing right. The tram progressively decelerated, and the scream of metal gradually diminished as we lost speed and finally eased to a stop at another tram station. It wasn’t exactly a smooth stop, reminding me that Zekki may have been trained as an engineer but it wasn’t her main job. There was a lot of jerking the last fifty meters or so as she had to keep pumping the breaks and then releasing them to make sure we came to a halt in the right spot. If she was having this much trouble, Zui and Rhoka must’ve had a really rough ride the other way.

Also a much longer one, it occurred to me. We’d gone straight to this station without halting, and the wind-powered trams could probably only go in one direction. Had they taken this thing on a complete circuit around the island to get to Fallencourt?

Whatever the case, we had arrived. This station looked smaller, with a relatively narrow platform and a broad flight of stairs the entire width of it leading up to a landing, effectively a second platform about even with the top of the tram. There were also ledges overlooking the tracks, which was relevant as those were now occupied with goblins in pink armor carrying shields and aiming slingshots at us.

In fact, there were a lot of armored goblins. Well, maybe not a lot, exactly, but more of them than there were of us. And unlike the mob we’d just fought, these had matching armor, stood in formations, and were carrying weapons that had clearly been made to be weapons.

“Easy,” I said as Yoshi gripped the handle of his sword. “These should be friends. Let Zui do the talking.”

“Friends,” Flaethwyn scoffed to herself, but we all ignored her. Zui stood and pushed the door open, turning to nod at me.

“It’ll be fine. Just gimme a minute to reassure everybody before you hop out. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you folks are skittish today.”

“Yeah, I hear it’s been rough,” I said gravely. “Apparently somebody stole a tram!”

She stared at me for a moment, then sighed, and hopped down.

Fortunately, the tension outside was already easing. Gizmit had gotten out before Zui, followed by Dap and Zekki, and the rest of his armored squad were emerging. We tall types were still the focus of a lot of attention through the bars, but the welcoming party had already lowered their weapons at the sight of familiar faces, and someone I assumed must be an officer had stepped forward to quietly confer with our goblin escorts.

“Biribo?” I murmured.

“Lots of goblins, no Blessed,” he replied. “I don’t sense any sign of an ambush or anything like that among all the activity beyond. Looks like what it is, a reasonable security precaution.”

“I would have said something immediately had we been walking into a trap,” Yoshi’s little pixie said haughtily.

I’d almost forgotten she was there, and now found myself grateful that she seemed to share Biribo’s habit of deliberately fading into the background when her input wasn’t specifically needed.

Zui turned and beckoned to us, and I took the opportunity to be the first to crawl out of the car. My legs were more than a little stiff after being scrunched in there for that long, but I managed not to embarrass myself.

“Well, well,” boomed a feminine voice from the top of the stairs, instantly earning my respect because this was a woman who knew how to project, “I’m sure there’s a fantastic explanation for all this.”

And that was how I finally met the great Miss Sneppit.

Which meant, of course, showtime.